Prophecy Girl
by Rachel Indeed
Summary: At the end of the Victorian era, a young girl in the Australian outback discovers she has a special destiny. Slowly, she learns to take control of it.  Kara/Lee, AU, set in the Buffy universe.
1. Chapter 1

_Dislaimer: _I am not Ron Moore or Joss Whedon. I own nothing. Many thanks to shah of blah for the prompt, to sci-fi-shipper for the beta, and to the mods at pilots_presents for the fic exchange!

**Prophecy Girl**

_Colony of New South Wales, Australia, 1894_

Her mother always told her she had a special destiny. Always warned her it would be as unforgiving as the landscape.

Kara grew up imagining her strength growing in brittle-barked gum trees, her hatred in the thick red clay and choking dust of the bush. Her love she hid under the frame of her father's piano.

That piano was the wonder of Sofala at the century's turning. Imported direct from London, it was the most of the metropolis anyone of Kara's generation ever hoped to see. Their whole ramshackle corner of Turon Hills turned out on the Queen's birthday, miners and rangers and mothers and kids pouring over the porch and pressing close to the daub-and-wattle walls as Mr. Thrace played his rounds of "Rule, Britannia." Kara had never seen a picture of Victoria Regina, but the music spoke to her of freedom and of pride. When her father asked what songs she wished to learn, she always chose battle hymns and patriot anthems.

He left her and her mother when Kara was eight years old, but for months Kara expected him to return for the piano.

The one time she played it without him, her mother broke her fingers. A week later, Kara listened from behind the house as Mama chopped its legs and body into firewood.

Sophie Krata was a third-generation descendent of the convicts who had starved and struggled along the barren coast. She'd been raised in the mines of New South Wales – gold came and went, but coal was constant and she carried its mark in her ruined lungs. She refused to take Kara with her to that work. Her daughter was meant for some higher glory, some greater suffering, though its shape remained unknown.

In the year 1900, when Kara was fourteen, unnatural power flooded her body. She did not understand it. Half a world away, in China, another young girl had died in fire and blood, and the potential hidden in Kara's veins burst to life. Sophie never laid a hand on her daughter again, but every word she'd ever said seemed justified.

She died not long after, and Kara lived hand to mouth, sheep shearing, cattle ranging, and hunting her way through the six colonies until destiny saw fit to catch up to her.

It took its time. It was two years later that Kara walked through the outskirts of Queenstown, a rifle over one shoulder and a brace of rabbits slung over the other, to find a thickset, weather-beaten man waiting for her on the sprawling porch of her employer's ranch house. He was dressed impeccably in the latest British fashion, but his pock-marked face spoke of a life lived in the margins. A colonial, like her, not an Englishman.

"Kara Thrace?" he asked, his voice a pleasing gravel.

"Who wants to know?"

He smiled, teeth white and a little crooked. "My name is William Adama. I work for the Watcher's Council in London. We've been trying to find you for quite some time."

She raised an eyebrow, setting her rifle down and stepping into the shade to lean against the porch railing. "Well, Mr. Adama, I've never heard of this Council, so why don't you just tell me what you want?"

"I want to talk to you, Miss Thrace. About your destiny."

In an instant, everything about her turned hard-edged. "What destiny?"

"You are the Chosen One, Miss Thrace. The one girl in all the world with the power to stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. You're the Slayer."

It was a long talk, but not as long as William had anticipated. Miss Thrace proved more ready than most to accept her calling, even though it involved facing demons from beyond the grave. He read more grim amusement than surprise in her face. Before the evening was out she had quit her job, and the next morning she followed William to the rail station with nothing more than her rifle and the clothes on her back.

They boarded the train for Adelaide, where they would transfer to the steamer which would carry them to England and the Council. William explained that he would supervise her in extensive training, teaching her to control her supernatural strength and to combat the unique dangers of her otherworldly foes. Then she would receive her posting and they would travel together to one of the world's transdimensional trouble spots, where her skills could do the most good.

It was a long train ride, and within the first half hour Kara grew fidgety. Without looking up, William marked his place in the battered, yellow-backed novel he'd been reading and set it aside. Though still in his middle age, he'd seen much of the world, and his career in the army had given him many campfire nights to master the art of storytelling.

Kara listened, entranced, to his portrait of the mountainous wastes where he'd faced the first fights of his life – ugly skirmishes against the Afghan tribes outside Kandahar, who fought, he assured her, like demons. His dearest friend had lost an eye to the same shrapnel that had carved its trail across his own face.

He'd fought with his regiment against the insurgents of Burma and the Zulu of South Africa, but it was in the Caribbean that he'd first learned the realities of the occult. In the aftermath of battle he'd been forced to face his own comrade, one-eyed and reanimated with corpse-like rigor. The fire that ended their struggle burnt away his remaining illusions. After that, there was no place for him in the army.

He'd searched out creatures of darkness on his own for an angry decade before the Watcher's Council offered him a place. He spoke to her of the Council's power and wisdom, its years of history, and in his voice she seemed to hear again the songs of her childhood. When William's well of words finally ran dry, they sat together in silence in the swaying railway car with the comfortable intimacy of kindred spirits.

Kara dozed off in the rocking carriage, and when she woke they were barely twenty minutes from the terminal.

"My son, Leland, will meet us at the station," William said, pulling his rucksack from beneath his seat and packing his book away. "He's made the arrangements for the ocean liner and will have our tickets ready." Catching Kara's curious glance, he added, "He's near your age, though he has the advantage of you by a year or two. He's apprenticing to the Council, and will be helping with your training."

"Following in his father's footsteps, I see," Kara grinned.

William paused a little too long before answering. "In his way."

Shortly thereafter the train jolted none too gently to a stop, and they kept their seats for a few minutes to let the stream of passengers seated behind them pass. As Kara rose and stepped into the aisle, William touched her elbow, holding her back a moment more. "Leland can be…difficult," he said. "But at heart he's a better soldier than he knows. Try to bear that in mind."

Kara was frowning as she stepped onto the railway platform, and had barely taken two steps in the over-bright sun when she found herself face to face with the most perfect Englishman she'd ever seen. Dazzling in white linen and tweed, he looked positively crisp in the wilting heat. He extended a hand to her – pale by colonial standards – and rolled her name in his polished, unfamiliar cadence. "Kara Thrace, I presume?"

"Leland Adama?" she returned, though he looked and sounded nothing like his father.

"Indeed," he said briskly, and after nodding to William he turned to direct them toward the dog-cart that was waiting to carry them to the dock. It was a short and silent ride; the Adamas apparently had little to discuss, and Kara was happy enough to keep silent, challenging herself to trace some resemblance between these two near-strangers. Leland had inherited his father's eyes and carried hints of William's breadth of brow and of shoulder. Beyond that, she recognized little in the young man. She'd caught a hint of surprise under the impersonal brush of his eyes at the terminal, but now he kept his attention firmly fixed on the passing landscape.

The problems began once they reached the ship. Leland produced their tickets as planned, but as soon as they were escorted to their cabins he started raising needless objections. He insisted that he had been promised a cabin along the hull and near the waterline, with a porthole for ventilation. He refused to accept their slated accommodations and argued with the steward for a solid quarter-hour, despite his father's evident irritation. When the steward finally agreed to reshuffle the cabin assignments, William announced that he found nothing wrong with his room, and with a disparaging glance at his son he vanished behind his cabin door. Kara, who had made herself comfortable within the first two minutes of debate, shrugged and assured Leland she was happy where she was. With a stiff-necked bow, he followed the steward toward the other end of the ship, promising to rejoin them for dinner.

Dinner went little better. He was animated enough at first, claiming the seat next to hers and eager to hear her thoughts on the recent transition of her country from loosely-knit colonies into a federated Australia. But once she made it clear that she had no interest in politics and considered "Australia" little more than a name, he cooled considerably. William took over the conversation and shared the latest news from his younger son, Zachariah, who was posted with the army in India. His letters were full of exotic tales, and William's vicarious joy in his son was infectious. Kara relaxed enough to let out a few full-blown cackles, but Leland only grew more silent and somber as his father spoke. By the end of the evening he was tight as a clam, and Kara wasn't sorry to bid him goodnight.

Though their steamer came equipped with every modern advantage and was certainly not at the mercy of the triangular Atlantic currents, they still faced a week-long voyage through the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and up the West African coast. Before they'd even reached the Cape of Good Hope, Leland was pestering her to begin her studies. Kara believed in being prepared, so she spent a few afternoons in Leland's cabin – which smelt powerfully of ammonia, as if he scoured it daily – and listened to him read. He picked selections from a veritable library of Watcher's chronicles which he had somehow managed to haul about in his compact luggage. These were the stories of women like her, the records of their callings and the lessons their Watchers had drawn from their earliest battles.

It should have been riveting, but Leland had none of his father's gift for oratory and the chronicles themselves were written in a dry, archaic style. He seemed utterly focused on the words in front of him, hardly interacting with her at all, and after a few days she told him bluntly that she knew what worked for her and what didn't, and this didn't. After that, she only saw him at meals, which he frequently skipped.

Normally she would have been happy to let him sulk, but he was her Watcher's son, so the odds of cutting him loose once they got to London were slim. Like it or not, he would be part of her training, so she decided to straighten out their working relationship sooner rather than later.

She burst into his cabin unannounced on their fifth evening out, fully intending to bully him out of his temper, and found him kneeling on the floor vomiting helplessly into a bucket.

"You idiot!" she greeted him, struck with sudden guilt over the skipped meals and daily cleaning that had irritated her before. "Why didn't you tell us you were ill?"

"Not ill," he said, straightening halfway up before wincing and curling cautiously back down. "Just seasick. I've always been susceptible. So I learned long ago to make arrangements in advance. I can handle it for myself this way."

"Of course – the cabin on the hull with sufficient 'ventilation.' Clever. By which I mean pathetic."

He huffed in what sounded surprisingly like good humor. "I have to admit, I was a bit relieved when you walked out on our lessons. The only downside has been that this blasted mess is all the worse without distractions."

He looked sweaty and miserable, far more human than she'd ever seen him, and she felt an unexamined rush of empathy. "Say no more. Fortunately for you, I'm a very distracting person." She went over to the books spread over his bunk and made a show of examining titles while he hauled himself to his feet and emptied the bucket through the porthole. She turned to him once he'd resumed his seat on the floor. "All right. We'll try this again, my way. Which of these – " she waved a hand over his tomes – "has the best pictures?"

"I assume that by 'the best' you mean 'the most obscene,' right?"

Caught off guard, she laughed. "Naturally."

He pointed to a giant black volume. "That one."

For the next half hour Kara offered very colorful commentary on the lurid illustrations provided by the fifteenth-century author.

"Demonology was a serious academic discipline in those days," he half-heartedly protested.

"You keep telling yourself that, Leland," Kara said, flipping more pages. "Oh, right, that is just disgusting. Paralyzing mucus? He's making this up."

Leland held himself together admirably; talking seemed to help, so when Kara finished with her pictures she settled onto the floor across from him and asked him what he wanted to hear. He said 'anything,' so she rambled off the top of her head about the idiocies of the ranch hands she'd had to manage in Thornsborough, and the harsh hill country where she'd learned to hunt, and without quite knowing why she found herself speaking to him of her father's music.

Leland listened, his eyes half-closed. When she stuttered abruptly over the piano, surprised by the strength of her memories, he sensed her discomfort. "I've a bit of a tin ear, myself," he said lightly. "Zach's the only musician in our family, and he's never had much time for indoor instruments. He's more of a bugler."

"Sounds like he must fit in well in the army."

Leland winced. "He loves it."

"Is he near your age?"

"Three years younger."

"He's full young, then, to be a soldier."

"Far too young. But Dad wanted a son in the army, and he still has enough friends in the service to make a nuisance of himself. He made sure they bent the rules for Zach after I refused to enlist."

"What? Why did you refuse?"

"Because our army has no business being in India," he exclaimed, suddenly emphatic. "No more do we. Zach has no idea what he's becoming party to, he never thinks about what Britain is doing in that country – _to_ that country."

Kara glared at him, dismayed. "You're a republican?"

"Proudly. I believe in freedom and self-determination. I can't believe you don't. You're a colonial yourself."

"Yeah, I am. And before you write off your father and brother, you should stop to consider the fact that you may not know what the hell you're talking about. The colonies don't need your pity any more than I do. I've been proud to be a part of this empire all my life."

"And what has the empire ever asked of you? It's easy to love Britain in songs and stories –" Kara bristled at his dismissive tone – "so long as it keeps its distance. But you might change your mind once it pillaged your resources or took your family for its wars without stopping to ask your leave. Once it deemed your own people unfit to rule and set its own officers above them. The empire doesn't _deserve _my loyalty." His rant slurred over an ominous-sounding gulp, and he pressed his hands against his stomach, slowing himself down. After a few deep breaths, he concluded simply, "You do."

Kara, still mildly outraged at his slights to the empire, echoed, "Me?"

"The Slayer, yes. Your battles are the more worth fighting." He inclined his head slightly, intense and dispassionate. "So I told my dad I would join the Watchers, not the army."

Kara took in the stubborn set of his jaw and shook her head, letting the argument go. "Fine, so you picked my team," she said, rolling her eyes. "I haven't decided yet whether to thank you."

"Fair enough." Lee let his head thud back against the cabin wall. "You're not exactly catching me at my best."

Kara treated him to a considering frown. "Oh, I don't know. I came in expecting a fight, and instead I got a front row seat to puking with a side of treason. You're a piece of work, Leland Adama, anyone ever tell you that?"

"Not in so many words. Most people seem to find me boring. Or infuriating."

"Or both," she added.

"And my name is Lee, not Leland, please."

She reached out with one booted foot and gave him a friendly nudge. "It's nice to meet you, Lee Adama."

"Likewise, Kara Thrace." He managed a wan but genuine smile before hunching over his bucket to be sick again.

They got on better, after that.

When they arrived in London, Kara was stunned by its perpetual grey. The skies, the buildings, the people all seemed swaddled in a blank, immobile fog. The stench in the hazy air caught at her throat, and she spent her first cab ride coughing violently into the handkerchief Lee had plucked from his sleeve for her. The headquarters of the Watcher's Council loomed black in the center of the City, a massive monument to Tudor excess coated in layers of urban filth.

Once through the gates, she was whisked away to be introduced to – and inspected by – the Council's directorate. This proved to be a reserved and academic collection of men, with the notable exception of Helen Cain, the acting President. She conducted Kara around the premises with blunt professionalism, surveying the weapons and combat styles she would be expected to master and outlining the vast resources at her command. "Welcome to the war, Miss Thrace," she said, pulling to a halt in front of the main training room. "The most secret and vital war ever fought. It has a proud history, and I can see it will have a bright future." Holding out her hand, she added, "You seem a woman of great potential. I look forward to watching your progress."

Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Kara matched Cain's firm grip and then stepped into the training room, relieved to find it empty. Her gaze wandered slowly over the punching bag, the pommel horse, the weights and weapons, the fencing piste. She trailed a hand along the ropes of the boxing ring, set square by Marquess of Queensbury standards, and grinned.

"You look like you're having fun already," Lee called from the door, and she turned to find both Adamas advancing her way.

"We could take you to your room and give you a chance to get settled," William said with his strange almost-smile, "but I thought you might prefer getting started right away." He tossed her a pair of thinly padded gloves and pointed toward the punching bag. "Let's see what you can do."

Her training settled quickly into an intense but sustainable rhythm – physical conditioning, combat tactics, weapons drills, and frenetic lessons in demonology. Both Adamas quickly discovered her strengths: years of hunting in the outback had made her a crack shot, she was brilliant at unconventional strategy, and her strength and reflexes made her a force to be reckoned with on the purely physical level.

Lee spent half his time squirreled away in the vast Council libraries digging up information on hellbeasts, both common and obscure. The other half he spent working as her sparring partner. The first time he stepped into the boxing ring and she saw the physique he normally hid, any lingering doubts about his anti-military stance were put to rest: he wasn't avoiding the army out of weakness. The results of formal training were clear in his every move, and his economy of motion formed a contrast to her loose-limbed, scrappy style. His formalism was often a flaw, as he tended to freeze up when she threw out unauthorized or unfamiliar moves. But he had a frustrating talent for using her superior strength and momentum against her, and half the time she found herself flattened on the mat while he politely offered to teach her the requisite defense technique for next time.

He never offered to help her up, though.

William was a hard task-master, but she could sense his unspoken praise. She amused him with her irreverent jokes, and she caught the flashes of approval in his face when he watched his son alongside her. She and Lee were learning quickly from each other, and Lee's style advanced in flexibility just as hers improved in technique. Soon she was winning nearly every round against him, no longer vulnerable to the off-center lunges and misdirections he'd exploited at first. But he seemed to take greater delight in losing to her than he had in winning. She teased him about it one evening as they were replacing their gear, and he looked at her with bemusement.

"Of course I'm glad you're winning. It's my job to make sure you do."

She bit her lip, feeling like a bad sport, and he jostled her arm with a quick flash of elbow. "So you go on enjoying your unfair advantages. Just remember you'll always need me in the library, even when you don't need me in the ring."

She tossed her gloves at him. "Yeah, you analyze the dreams and cross-index the prophecies, Leland. Have fun with that."

Lee shrugged. "I don't care for prophecies, actually. I've no interest in them."

Kara dug out her shoes and sat down on their work bench, hunching over the laces. "You'll be pretty damn unprepared for this job, then," she said over her shoulder. "The worst watcher in the history of watchers, I'd wager. This whole Slayer business runs on destiny."

Lee shook his head. "If something is truly fated, then it will happen no matter what. Real destiny doesn't require you to see it coming in advance."

"Sure enough." Kara double-tied the knots. "But isn't it better for us to see what's coming?"

"No," Lee said. She sat up, surprised to see him staring at her with real concern. "If events actually _depend_ upon your hearing a prophecy, then they aren't destined. They rest upon your reactions and choices. Prophecies are designed to confuse that simple fact, and you shouldn't let them."

"So…you think destiny's real but prophecies are traps?"

Lee ducked his head, ankles turned and hands unsettled. "That's right."

"Even for me, being 'chosen' and all?"

He caught her eyes. "Especially for you."

The worst part of training in Watcher headquarters was the audience. Though William fought to keep most of their sessions closed, every week at least one appointed 'observer' circled through their space to evaluate Kara's progress. She never saw the forms they constantly circulated, but flicking pencils seemed to haunt her peripheral vision. After two months of living in a hive of bureaucracy, the actual demons were looking better and better.

William took her out on supervised runs through the London back alleys, and she discovered the midnight rush of combat with creatures whose strength approached her own. There was a heady joy in it, a chance to discover who she was when she held nothing back. She reveled in the dances she learned with these devils. William called her a terror, with pride.

But she was getting impatient. She wanted to be let off the leash, and so far they were scheduling her slaying just as rigorously as her diet. She had always made her own calls and judged her own strength, and if she couldn't carve out a measure of independence, she would grow to resent even William. She lived for the day she was cleared for the field.

She saw less of Lee as she moved into real combat. He accompanied her as back-up once or twice, but he was focusing more heavily on research in preparation for their posting. Once they were sent to an outpost, they would lose their easy access to the central archival collections, and it was hard to predict what snatch of arcane knowledge might make the difference between life and death. From what Kara could see, if Lee didn't take notes on every single one of the rarest volumes, it wouldn't be for lack of trying.

They passed each other in exhaustion one night as he headed to bed and she headed to work – she was scheduled for her first cemetery run at one in the morning. She gave a small wave as she came down the stairs and he smiled.

"Your hair's getting so long."

"I know," she said. "Cain's minions keep telling me to cut it. I think it's losing me points on their tally sheets."

He glanced away. "Well, they do have a point. You wouldn't want to get caught or pulled along by it. It's a bit of an unnecessary risk."

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. "What's life without a little risk?"

For a minute it looked like he might argue, but in the end he waved a hand and said, "Good luck tonight."

His fingertips grazed the back of her arm before he vanished up the stairs.

After four months, Kara faced her final set of evaluations to be cleared for the field. Her performance was, on all accounts, stunning. William's brief smile spoke volumes, and he walked into Cain's office with just a touch of overconfidence to receive their assignment.

It was two hours later – and Kara was starting to worry – when he called her and his son into his workroom. They stood before his desk, and it was clear from his determined neutrality that something had gone badly wrong.

"President Cain sends her congratulations, Kara, on your achievement. You apparently surpassed all previous records in marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat and tactics. She feels that you are more than ready, and your first assignment will be to our outpost in Zurich. Your new Watcher will be –"

"My _what?_" Kara interrupted. Lee looked equally shocked.

William sighed. "President Cain does not appreciate the…'family spirit' in which I have undertaken your training. She feels that we have all grown too close to one another and are lacking the necessary objectivity for the field. Leland and I have been reassigned."

Kara and Lee broke out in an instant cacophony:

"Well, President Cain is deluded and she can kiss my –"

"She can't just throw Kara to the wolves without any of the support network she's devel –"

"Enough!" William shouted, and for the first time Kara saw the real depth of his temper. "President Cain is the leader of this institution which we all serve and which will be your support against the worst evils of this world. Her word is law and I expect you both to do your duty, as I will do mine."

"This is insane," Kara said, and slammed the door on her way out.

For the first time she took to the streets alone. She worked through her anger in a flurry of violence and felt her blood sing with the power of her calling. She scoured the cemeteries and took her time driving her stakes home.

In the pale light just before dawn she returned and found Lee sitting, worn out, across from the punching bag in their training center. The bag was lying on its side on the floor, its supporting chain broken and dangling loosely from the overhead frame.

"Rough night?" Kara drawled.

He didn't bother to reply.

"Get up," she said, more seriously. "Come on. Go pack your things."

"Give it up, Kara."

"Excuse me?"

"I said give it up." He glared at the wall. "There's nothing we can do."

"That is the most pathetic and abject surrender I've ever heard, and with an attitude like that I'm not even sure why I want you on my team."

"Kara…"

"But I do." She hit the wall with the flat of her hand.

Cain's secretary, Miss Shaw, rose from her seat when she saw the Slayer coming. Moving smartly from desk to door, she stood stone-faced in Kara's warpath. "You have no appointment, Miss Thrace," she said.

"Let me in," Kara ordered. "Now."

Shaw stared straight ahead, unmoved. "I wish you well, of course, but I'm not under your command. You'd do well to remember that." Altering neither tone nor expression, she added, "As it happens, the President is expecting you."

Shaw unlocked the office door and swung it wide, announcing, "The Slayer to see you, ma'am."

Momentarily flat-footed, Kara hovered on the threshold, then stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind her. The room was tidy and bare, lacking even in chairs. Nothing showed a hint of personality except for the weapons carefully mounted on the far wall. Cain stood at a filing cabinet, her back to Kara.

"I heard about your little excursion last night," Cain said, not bothering to turn. "My sources say you killed seven vampires in a single run. Astonishing." She pulled a file out, propping it atop its drawer and scanning over its contents. "I've reevaluated my initial decision. You can handle bigger game than the riffraff in Zurich. I'm sending you straight to the Hellmouth in Corsica." She turned her head to the right, speaking over her shoulder in a slightly softer tone. "Believe it or not, that's quite a promotion, and you wouldn't be getting it if you hadn't earned my faith. Congratulations, Miss Thrace."

Kara clenched her fists but kept her voice level. "I want the Adamas on my team, ma'am."

Cain turned, tossing her file on the desk and clasping her hands behind her. "It's fairly obvious what you want, but I'm more interested in what you need. The Adamas have done a fine job with your training, but as you enter the front lines your Watcher's most important gift will be his judgment. That judgment cannot be impaired by sentiment. It's a weakness you won't be able to afford."

"We're not sentimental," Kara gritted. "And we're sure as hell not weak. We're a team that works very well together and we've got the results to prove it. I just broke half the combat records in Council history, and I'm only getting started."

Cain sighed. "Let's cut through it, shall we? William has a father's love for you" – Kara caught her breath – "and as comforting as that may be, it is useless to our cause. His son is a free-thinking, disloyal menace who was accepted into this institution over my objections. And you, Miss Thrace, are a soldier of great potential who has gotten far too close to her handlers. I'm not trying to interfere with your mission, believe me. I'm trying to save it."

At the word 'handlers' Kara had spun for the door, but she stopped with her hand on the knob. She gripped it hard and waited until she found words. "You're making a mistake."

"I think not."

"You are."

Slowly she walked back until she stood square before the President. "You want to cut through it? I'm the Slayer, the strongest weapon you have. You need me, and I need them. So I'm taking William and Lee, and we're going to fight your war. And you'll let us, because you'd sacrifice anything, even a piece of your own authority, for the sake of victory. To do anything less would be a waste. And that's a weakness _you _can't afford."

Kara leaned forward against the desk and held out her hand. "You're a good soldier, Madame President. But so are we. Give us a chance, and we'll show you just how good."

Once the Slayer sailed out of Cain's office, Miss Shaw slipped in and offered the President a cup of tea.

"I take it you're cancelling the Adamas' reassignments?" she remarked.

Cain smiled slightly against the rim of her cup. "I don't have to cancel them, as they were never filed. I'm a connoisseur of rare weapons, you know, and I believe in testing their mettle. Miss Thrace is a determined young woman. I expect to see great things."

Shaw nodded. "And of course," she said deferentially, "there is the prophecy to consider."

"Indeed," Cain said, setting down her saucer and reopening the folder on her desk. "At a guess, I'd say it is referring to Leland rather than William. But time will tell. I'm most intrigued by this 'harbinger of death' passage."

Her finger hovered just above the ink. "It has possibilities."


	2. Chapter 2

**Prophecy Girl**

Part Two

After their field status was reconfirmed, both William and Lee approached Kara with slightly star-struck gratitude until she taunted them out of it.

"Now, who among us is in charge?" she prompted Lee.

"The lady," he answered obediently.

"Do I look like a lady?"

"Um…" he hedged.

"Do I act like a lady?"

"Definitely not."

"So who's in charge, Lee?"

"You are." With a grin, he added, "And you're utterly mad."

"I don't know what you did," William told her, "and I don't want to know. But thank you."

Lee nodded. "So say we both."

Within days, they set off together on a channel liner that swept them around the rocks of Gibraltar and on to the Mediterranean. Lee was predictably ill and kept to his cabin, so Kara amused herself on deck and checked in on him with the latest shipboard gossip. He was mildly scandalized by her speculations about their fellow passengers – "I'm telling you, Lee, all three of them. Don't look at me like that, it's true. And that water-boy cannot be from this dimension of reality. Just look at his shirt!" But he was more seriously irritated by her total lack of interest in the republican history of their island destination.

She scuffed her feet in unrepentant boredom. "The only thing I know about Corsica, besides that it's perched over the mouth of hell…"

"_A_ mouth of hell," Lee corrected pedantically. "There are several."

Kara rolled her eyes. "…The only other thing I know is that Bonaparte was born there." She gasped. "Wait, Lee – was Bonaparte a demon?"

Lee sank his forehead to his hand. "You overdosed on patriotic songs as a child," he muttered. "The French are not, nor have they ever been, governed by the legions of hell. Go. Leave me to suffer in peace."

Upon arrival, Corsica's white cliffs overhung their ship's harbor. A stunning outcropping of volcanic rock, its mountains towered over the tiny, sun-baked villages that lined the coast. The people there had been terrorized for hundreds of years by the unnatural creatures their Hellmouth spewed forth, and they rationalized the loss of over a quarter of their population by attributing every disappearance to familial vendettas and pursuing their own blood feuds in retaliation. The more the monsters preyed on them, the more they turned on each other.

Lee had not had time to study Corsu, the local language, but he spoke passable French and was usually able to make himself understood. He handled the mundane arrangements for their daily needs and used his contacts with the villagers to gather up local lore and recent news. William was quite at home in the rugged terrain, and with his guidance Kara made more kills over her first two weeks in those looming rocks than she'd made during all her months in London.

Together, they grew in confidence; planning bolder attacks and more intricate defenses. The parlor of their villa was soon cluttered with books and swords and magical totems. They gathered around one common worktable for research and tactics, arguments and jokes. Kara stayed there through the lazy afternoons before her nightly patrols as well, half-napping in a corner while Lee bent over his books. Yellow light shone through the window, moving slowly along the wall and changing the shadows across his face.

Six months in, she averted her first apocalypse. She didn't know how to handle that kind of responsibility so she didn't think about it. She just fought.

She worried for Lee, though, who couldn't quiet his mind to save his life. In the first days after the crisis she watched him carefully, bracing for impact. But he didn't fall apart. William had a few too many drinks, but regretted it in the morning, and other than that life continued as before.

Her favorite quarry, she decided, were vampires. An unoriginal preference, perhaps, but they had just enough intelligence to keep things interesting. They were also tremendously convenient in defeat, the only one of her opponents who didn't clutter the countryside with their corpses.

At times she forgot to be afraid of them. William rebuked her, but it was the subtle stress around Lee's eyes that made her stomach clench when she had to report a close call.

Over time, Lee reached out to her more often. The light, cautious touches that had glanced off her shoulders for months began to linger, more secure in their assumptions.

The first kiss was hers. They were walking back from patrol on a cloudy morning when she turned to him. One moment they were only near, the next they touched. It wasn't complicated. The warmth of her fingertips didn't surprise him, and she hardly had to learn the slant of his jaw.

They knew each other in so many ways that the soft persistence of her mouth on his slipped into their routine with barely a ripple. They never discussed it.

The Council left them alone for a year and a half, apparently satisfied with their progress. But in the week just before Kara turned eighteen, Cain herself descended on Corsica with a retinue of observers – or hecklers, as Kara preferred to regard them. It was the London routine all over again, complete with evaluation forms and scorecards.

It was an open secret that Cain was still skeptical of the Adamas' objectivity, so they both did their best to act professional. Kara gave Lee a wide berth, and he concentrated on his books and answered every question their guests posed with meticulous accuracy. On the rare occasions when she caught his eye, he seemed faintly amused by the ordeal.

Kara was not inclined to play so nicely. The Watchers who tested her aim stood rigid as she winged her shots around their heads, tracing their silhouettes in bullet pocks on the wall behind them. And she insisted on staging her noisiest combat drills at three in the morning directly beneath the second-story office where President Cain had taken up residence.

The constant rounds of inspection seemed to weigh more heavily on William. He looked pained, even in their closed study sessions. Kara took pity on him and did her best to be attentive. This proved easier said than done, as despite all her efforts, she found herself falling into a daze each time they went over the various healing properties of crystals. One stone in particular, light blue with a tiny flaw at its center, was supposed to aid in concentration but seemed only to do the opposite. She had only to look at it and her mind began to drift. Each time William reengaged her wandering attention she apologized and resolved to do better, grateful that so far none of the Council had witnessed her lapses.

But those lapses soon grew harder to ignore. She felt physically weary, her strength fading at an alarming rate. Illness could not have come at a worse time. She'd never once been sick since the power of her calling had washed over her at the age of fourteen – this inexplicable weakness started a kick of panic in her gut. Instinctively, she fought to cover up her problem and to overcome it with concentration and practice. She spent her afternoons repetitively bouncing a ball off the wall of her bedroom, learning the new limits of her dulled reflexes. Lee interrupted once, with a look of confusion, to ask if she was all right, but she ordered him out. She didn't want to be seen this way. Normally he would have argued, but with a house full of Watchers he couldn't be too overt in his concern.

She braced herself for disaster at her next evaluation, but mercifully the Council members seemed to have finished their physical tests. William, though, clearly sensed her disorientation, as he privately urged her to forgo her normal patrols for a few nights. She confided in him then, describing her symptoms and asking for his help in researching a cure; she didn't want to tell Lee, unwilling to deal with his reaction. William promised to look into it, but his stoicism was only skin deep. She saw the concern he tried to hide beneath it.

What she missed, however, was the guilt he hid beneath it.

The following night, he made his confession to her. He explained the mesmerizing power of the blue stone she had studied and described how he'd used it to anesthetize her – every time she had looked at it, she'd fallen into a light trance.

"But why did you do that? Why put me in a trance?"

Slowly, William reached into his old morocco case and pulled out an evil little syringe. He set it carefully on the table between them, and she couldn't take her eyes off the sluggish yellow chemicals floating in the vial beside it.

"The drugs are simple depressants," William said, his voice so low it was barely audible. "Designed to relax your muscles and suppress your adrenaline. I have been…administering it…in order to…" Kara picked up the case and threw it at his head, missing him by a good nine inches. He stopped, choking slightly, then tried again. "…In order to prepare you for a test. The Council's final test. They designed it as a rite of passage centuries ago. Every Slayer faces this challenge when she turns eighteen. I was supposed to…disable you temporarily, and then you were to face a vampire on ground of the Council's choosing and to defeat it without relying on your supernatural strength. It's a test of mind and emotion, requiring resourcefulness on your part and detachment on mine. It was the only way…" For the first time, he met her eyes. "It was the only way I could prove to the Council, once and for all, that I'm capable of doing this job. I thought if we could just get through it..."

Kara listened in shock. "You think this is about a job?" she repeated. "You lied to me. You _poisoned_ me." She stared at him, her eyes stinging. "Walk out of this room," she said slowly, "while you still can."

He turned away, lifting both hands to his head with a despair that touched her heart. He paused at the door. "Kara…" He couldn't manage more for a moment, but then said, "You should know: since I've told you all this, the test cannot go forward. I've broken the rules, and it's over. I'll go now to tell the President." He kept his back to her. "I've no right to ask your forgiveness. But never doubt … never doubt that you're family to me."

After he left Kara hunched over his desk, arms curled around herself. Sick of fighting tears, she let anger take hold and overtook William on his way to the second story of their villa where the Watchers had set up office. "Don't bother telling Cain," she told him fiercely. "I'll tell her myself." With a vicious twist, she added, "You tell Lee."

She left him behind and took to the stairs, her blood pumping with familiar fury. She felt more herself than she had in days.

Miss Shaw didn't bother with obstruction this time, merely waving Kara through as she passed. Cain was sitting – a rarity for her – in one of the guestrooms, going over her latest reports.

Kara kicked the leg of her worktable, scattering the orderly piles stacked on top.

Cain speared her with a look. "That was childish."

"I found out about your little test," Kara announced, "and it's sick."

Cain rose and shook her head in mild disgust. "William cracked, I see," she said. "True to form."

"This whole sideshow circus has been true to form for the Council," Kara answered. "And I'm through jumping through your hoops. You're a bunch of smart people, but you somehow add up to a barely competent and paranoid group."

Cain had a mean right hook, and with her reflexes in their current state, Kara took it hard. She staggered backward, barely keeping her feet.

"I don't tolerate insults to this institution, not even from you," Cain said flatly. "The Adamas have let you run wild, and under normal circumstances I'd have recalled them long ago. But I had a prophecy to consider, so I decided to tolerate their irregularities instead of placing you under proper supervision. Believe me, there are days when I still question the wisdom of that choice."

Kara held a hand to her swelling cheek, surprised to discover how much she had forgotten about the specific feel of her childhood. The dread inside her chest and the blood inside her cheek were stark reminders. She muttered, "What prophecy?"

Cain gave her a calculating look, then reached into her briefcase and removed a narrow file.

"Every Slayer inspires a prophecy at the moment of her calling. The Council employs a number of seers to keep track of such things. Normally their words are quite specific; they almost always include a name, which is how we begin to track down the girl who has been newly Chosen. Your prophecy, however, was terribly vague, and we spent almost two years searching the world for you with little to go on."

Cain flipped open the file and held it out to Kara. "You see?"

For a second, Kara thought about turning away. But she wasn't a coward, and no matter what Lee thought, it was always better to know. She lowered her eyes and read.

_The Slayer, a daughter of Eve, shall join a son of Adam. A fated pair, they shall fall together in darkness. She is the harbinger of death. She will lead him to his end._

She stared at the words, the horror of their message made worse by her own lack of surprise. On some fundamental level, she had always known this about herself.

"As will be obvious," Cain continued calmly, "this could refer to any woman and any man on Earth. After months of aimless reconnaissance on the part of all our staff, William applied to my office for permission to join the search along with his son. He was a loose cannon – we took him in to keep him off the streets – but that small request made me realize that we had been making a simplistic error. The prophecy had given us a name after all. Just not yours."

Cain reached down and lightly scratched her pencil across the file.

The altered text ran:

_The Slayer, a daughter of Eve, shall join a son of Adama. Fated pair, they shall fall together…_

Slowly, Kara backed away, fumbling blindly for the door behind her.

"We assigned the Adamas to your case, and they found you within a few weeks. From that point, I regarded both the prophecy and my own interpretation of it as reliable. Technically," Cain persisted, "either William or Leland could fit its description, as they are equally sons of an Adama. I know this will be a small comfort," she concluded, "but it looks as though you're only meant to take one of them down with you in the end."

Two hours later, Lee found her a mile down the road from their villa. She was sitting on a stoop overlooking the harbor outside the large storehouse where they kept their training equipment. She hadn't opened its padlocked door, preferring to sit in the growing dark.

Lee took a seat next to her on the stoop, propping up his knees and looping his arms around them.

"This is why I told you never to listen to prophecies," he said conversationally.

"Cain showed it to you?"

He nodded. "I had a screaming row with my dad," he said, "and went on for a second round with her. I told her exactly what I thought about the Council and its sadistic tests. It turns out she's got a strong right hook, by the way."

"Yeah, I know."

"I told her I quit, and she said that would make little difference and showed me the prophecy. So I thought I'd better come down here and have my third row of the day with you. Unless you want to save us both the trouble and agree to ignore the bloody thing like a reasonable person."

Kara's eyes had their distant look – desolate and faithful – which always scared him. He didn't understand this side of her, the side that could wear resignation like cold armor. He knew that common, everyday injustice made her angry, even violent; he trusted that reaction because, to a certain extent, he shared it and had learned to manage it. But somehow cosmic injustice only made her sarcastic and tired. "I can't ignore my fate," she muttered. "And I'm not going to shut my eyes and tell myself I'm in control when I'm not. That's your delusion, not mine."

Lee sighed. "All right. You want to do this? Let's do it. Harbinger. Give me the definition."

"Could you just…"

"Do you even know what it means?"

The shadows beneath her eyes darkened as she glared. "Yes!"

"Then tell me."

"A messenger," she spat. "A sign."

"That's a good start. The full definition also includes the terms emissary or forerunner."

"What's your point?"

Lee settled into his lecture mode, which was always aggravating. "It's clear, then, that just as 'harbinger' has multiple meanings, so, too, does 'the harbinger of death.'"

"Death follows me, is what it means. What more do you want?"

"I want you to look for the catch – prophecies are always tricks."

"No amount of thinking is going to turn this into anything but a…"

"Forerunner," he interrupted. "Start there. You're a forerunner, you move in front of death."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Wherever death arrives, you're there ahead of it," Lee clarified. "Forever the first in its path, standing in its way, shielding the people around you."

He turned his face to her and all his formality dissolved. "Kara, you're the Slayer. I've always known you would stand between me and death, I didn't need a prophecy to tell me that. It's who you are. It's what you do, not just for me but for all of us."

She closed her eyes at the touch of his hand on her cheek, but her forehead crinkled and she shifted away from his fingers, shaking her head. "That's not what it means."

"It could mean anything, love. Decide what it means to you."

"And fight for that until I can't?" she pressed, almost angry. "That'd be just great, Lee, but it's not that simple."

"Why not?"

His fingertips brushed her skin again, and she stilled his hand against her face, tracing her thumb across the wrist. "I'll lead you to your end, it said. No matter what I want, no matter how I fight, that will still happen."

His huff of frustration shifted a strand of her hair. "Everything leads me to my end," he insisted. "That's what an end is – it's the final outcome of all my previous choices. If you determine my end, it only means you affect me more than anyone else does. That doesn't remotely surprise me."

Her hand tightened around his. "We can't just twist the words to make them mean whatever we want."

"Yes, we can. It's not that hard. There are probably fifteen interpretations equally plausible. I just wish you'd never seen the damn thing in the first place."

"Be serious."

"I'm not only serious, I'm sensible."

"Lee…" He caught his breath to hear the _need_ in her voice.

He held still as she kissed her way across his cheek and forehead in a sudden flurry; he tilted his head up to her as she knelt on the stoop and framed his face with both her hands. "I know," he whispered, answering her emotion rather than her words. "But you can't play the soothsayer's game," – their foreheads brushed – "any more than the Council's. You've got to make them play yours. It's what you do best."

Kara closed her eyes and leaned against him, letting something of his certainty infect her. "Everyone has a skill, I suppose," she muttered into his hair. With an unspoken common impulse, they rose to their feet and pulled into a hug, rocking slightly.

He held tight, but eventually she grew uncomfortable with sentiment and poked him in the ribs. He started to pull away, but she pressed her hand to the back of his neck so he wound up bending forward at a slightly awkward angle. "All right," she muttered into his ear. "I believe you. We can take this stupid prophecy and do it our way. What the hell, right?"

She felt him smile, though she didn't see it. "Right."

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. "So," she forced a grin, "this falling together in the dark…are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

He blushed.

Lee went missing the following evening.

It took her longer than it should have to notice. Their household was in complete disarray as the Watchers packed up their belongings and prepared to return to England. Kara spent most of the day avoiding both Cain and William, mainly because punching either of them in her weakened state would be an exercise in frustration. She kept to her room, stubbornly ricocheting objects off the wall in the hope that her reflexes would kick in between throws. This time when Lee stopped by, she invited him in. He sat on the floor across the room and let her pelt him with balled-up socks for a while (her aim was improving, but she never managed to hit his nose). He refrained from pointing out that this 'practice' was pointless since she'd be back to normal once the drugs wore off in a day or so. Until then she was trying both to distract herself and to avoid all the people she didn't want to deal with. That left her with limited options; hence, socks.

He eventually tired of playing her target and left with the promise that he'd find something better for her to do. She assumed this meant books, and when he didn't return she decided he must have gotten distracted flipping through one of his favorite volumes. Either that or he was off stealing a few new editions from the open packing crates upstairs before the Council carried them back to London.

After an hour she gave up; boredom had always been worse than confrontation for her. She marched out of her room to pick a fight. She found Cain directing her subordinates' traffic through the villa's darkening entryway; they were loading up a mule-cart to carry their baggage down to the harbor. William sat at the central worktable, looking like he hadn't slept in days. The anxiety and hope in his face when she walked toward him hurt her more than she'd expected.

"Where's Lee?" she asked sharply.

He blinked, swallowed whatever he'd wanted to say, and muttered, "He passed through a while ago. I think he was going down to the storehouse; he was looking for training equipment."

She turned and was almost out the front door when Cain called after her. "I'd take your weapons, if I were you."

Kara went cold. When she turned, Cain was standing with her hands clasped behind her back and the bare edge of a smile twisting the corner of her mouth.

"What have you done?"

"What I came here to do," Cain said. "Administer a test, and possibly resolve a prophecy."

Kara was turning white, and William rose from his seat, confused and angry. "What's going on here?" he growled. "I don't know anything about a prophecy, and as for your test, it isn't going to happen."

"Because you say so?" Cain inquired. "This rite of passage has been followed for hundreds of years; did you really think you could dismiss it so easily? Dismiss the Council so easily?" She shook her head. "You decided from the beginning, all three of you, that you would do as you pleased. Playing house," she gestured scornfully at the clutter of their parlor, "instead of living like soldiers. The Council has become a mere annoyance in your eyes." She was speaking to William but looking at Kara. "You're not the first to be so blind, and you won't be the last. This test was designed precisely to deal with the problem of veterans, over-confident in their power and insubordinate in their judgments. In order for us to keep working together, those habits must be broken."

"Broken," Kara repeated. A horrified calm had settled over her. "What have you done with Lee?"

"If he went into the storehouse down the road, I'm afraid he's stumbled into your testing ground," Cain said. "There is a vampire inside, and a number of other obstacles designed to test for ingenuity and adaptability – not his greatest strengths, I hear."

With a yell, William launched himself at her, but he was enough of a soldier to freeze at the quiet click of a cocking revolver. Miss Shaw stepped forward, her aim perfectly steady. "Keep your distance, if you please, Mr. Adama," she instructed. Without shifting her eyes, she added, "Don't you think you'd better be on your way, Miss Thrace?"

Kara ransacked William's office in a matter of minutes, searching for any weapons to hand that could not be turned against her by a foe of superior strength. She stuffed her pockets while Cain watched. Kara reentered the parlor and hurried for the door.

"Bring him back," William ordered as she passed. His face was hard and furious, and she paused to lift a hand to his shoulder. "I will," she promised. She looked at Cain and said more loudly, "I will. Prophecy be damned."

Cain nodded, looking faintly regretful. "I admire your spirit. But fighting Fate is a losing war. And we are not in the business of losing wars."

With a look of pure hate, Kara vanished through the doorway.

After a moment, Cain shook her head, rejecting some private thought.

"That's right," William said, still facing Shaw's gun. "She thinks you're a monster. And you are. I don't know what she's going to do to you when she gets back, but you better hope she gets to you before I do."

Cain raised an eyebrow. "Empty threats, William? The favorite tactic of the powerless; I could have wished for better from you." She turned her back, rolling the folded knuckles of one hand in subconscious, repetitive motion. "There's a reason we have to keep our distance," she said. "These Slayers, these children, they fight and die in the moment. We have to carry on their battles, we have to stand our ground and plan for the future they'll never see. For the greater good, it's we who must survive. And sometimes, as hard as it is, that means standing aside and letting destiny run its course."

William's fury lowered his voice, making it sharp as a whisper. "It's not enough to survive. We have to be worthy of survival."

Cain stared at him blankly and sighed. "How you've made it this long I will never know."

Night had fallen as Kara approached the storehouse – the door was open and creaking as the wind shifted it on its hinges. Inside it would be pitch black; the building was windowless and solidly made.

She slipped through the door and waited in silence, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark. Normally, the storehouse was largely empty – a space for sparring practice and weapons storage. But she began to make out strange shapes in front of her: doors that went nowhere and half-constructed walls of wood or brick. These obstacles were scattered across the room, breaking the open space into dozens of potential hiding places and dead ends. The smell of the mortar was still fresh. Groups of Watchers must have been constructing this maze in secret while their compatriots had kept her and the Adamas occupied at the villa.

There was nothing for it but to plunge in. Kara's muscles were still too weak for her to try jumping over the half-built walls, so she simply walked forward, one arm braced in front of her and the other tucked in her pocket, fingering her weapons. She expected to be ambushed by the hidden vampire, and with every moment that passed her nervous tension ratcheted higher. She took half a dozen wrong turns as she went.

She made it all the way to the center of the maze before she found its monster. This vampire was an elderly man, wizened and dark, with bitter eyes glinting under the brim of his hat. A second vampire in a gaudy red jacket stood to the side, a cross-bow in his hand. The weapon was not aimed at her, but rather at Lee.

Lee looked alive and unharmed, which was more than she'd dared to hope for, but the vampires had used the chain and padlock from the storehouse door to bind him into a large wooden box that was standing upright by the wall. It looked like a giant packing crate, and both of Lee's hands were chained fast to its sides. The Watchers must have used the same box to transport one of the vampires here.

"Took your time, didn't you, dear?" said the elderly vampire, leisurely rising to his feet. "John Cavil, by the way. I look forward to killing you."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said.

His eyes ran over her, pausing, with a slight smile, at the bulges in her pockets. "You should be," he answered. "You might think that a few hundred years of life would make one more hour of wasted time seem insignificant in comparison. But the truth is that immortality is excruciatingly dull, and I resent every added burden."

"I'll bet." Kara kept herself focused on the vampires rather than on Lee. "Anytime you want me to put you out of your misery, just say the word."

Cavil smiled thinly. "Oh, I'd rather live forever than be killed by the likes of you. That's my curse, it really is."

Her eyes darted to his companion with the crossbow. "Your friend feel the same way?"

"He's a new-comer, I'm afraid. One of your Watchers, you see, who was supposed to be keeping me under guard. He ventured a little too close. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you take my meaning, but then again I find that subordinates who think for themselves are usually more trouble than they're worth. President Cain seems to share that philosophy, from what I hear."

"What do you want?" Kara gritted out, already sick of his attitude. But she privately thanked heaven for a villain who loved the sound of his own voice; a less melodramatic foe would have done the practical thing and killed Lee an hour ago.

"Well, being a vampire, I want to kill you and drink your blood. Surely that can't come as much of a surprise? No sense fighting against our natures, after all. So you'll oblige me, please, by emptying your pockets and dropping whatever weapons you have stashed away."

She didn't move.

The vampire sighed. "I had thought my implied threat was obvious, but apparently you like to have things spelled out. Drop your weapons immediately, or I will kill your lover."

For the first time, Lee spoke up, his voice steady. "He'll kill me anyway."

Cavil nodded approvingly. "Perfectly true. But there are deaths, and then there are…undeaths." He paused and murmured, "Such a clunky phrase," and then resumed. "If you drop your weapons now, I'll kill him clean and simple. Crossbow bolt, straight to the heart, he'll hardly feel it. If you try to fight, I'll drain him dry, force my blood down his throat, and make you watch while he turns into a vampire. And then I'll let him loose on you."

She'd never seen Lee terrified before, but now the pale horror on his face matched her own. "It's not your fault," Lee said urgently. "Whatever he does, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. Believe that!"

Cavil winced. "Doomed love is so tedious," he muttered, then raised a hand toward Doral, who aimed the crossbow. Turning to Kara, Cavil smiled with his fangs bared. "And for the record, everything I'm about to do to him is your fault."

"All right, all right!" Kara shouted. "Have it your way."

She stepped forward, pulling out the jars that were rattling in her pockets.

Cavil frowned. "Holy water? That's it?"

Slowly, Kara held out the clear glass bottles and overturned them, soaking the floor in a harmless shower. "Water couldn't be turned against me," she said. "I didn't want to risk any more weapons winding up in the wrong hands. You had Lee, I knew I'd have to bargain."

"How suspiciously prudent. Doral tells me that among the Watchers you have a reputation as a hothead." Cavil's voice snapped warningly. "So I suggest you drop whatever it is you're holding in your right fist before I have to make you."

Kara stepped back, hesitating, and Cavil stepped forward. "Drop it now," he hissed.

"I thought you'd never ask." Kara flicked open William's silver lighter and dropped it in the puddle of alcohol she had just poured onto the floor at Cavil's feet. He went up like a torch, with no time for last words. It was perfect.

Kara started running toward Lee, but Doral, nothing if not single-minded, lifted the crossbow and prepared to fire. She threw herself forward, edging in front of Lee at the last second. The arrow sank deep into her shoulder. She heard Lee scream her name as she hit the ground. In the precious seconds of shock before she felt the wound, she forced herself to reach over her shoulder and snap off the protruding wood. Her new stake in hand, she rolled onto her knees and faced Doral. She was panting, dizzy, sick with pain, and totally in her element.

"Come after me," she said, staring the vampire down. "Please."

Doral looked from the blood on her shoulder to the stake in her hand, then started backing away from the spreading fire. Without a word, he turned and ran to the far wall, punching through it to escape into the night.

Kara crumpled slowly to the floor, close to passing out, but she knew she had to get Lee out of his chains somehow. And then they had to get out before they were burnt alive.

"I have the key!" Lee shouted, and she looked at him in complete confusion. "They chained me with the padlock that was on the door. I brought the key to that with me, it's in my front pocket. I just can't get to it."

Shakily, she reached into his pocket and handed him the key. He unlocked himself and caught her up in a fireman's hold, and then ran for the opening Doral had torn through the wall. In another second, they were free in the open air, stumbling to a halt on the lip of the cliff overlooking the harbor. Gingerly, he set her down, examining her wound in the light of the fire. Once he was sure it was not critical, he sat back on the grass.

"You're marvelous," he told her, sounding dazed.

She smiled and started to answer, but then he was kissing her madly, so she didn't bother.

To their surprise, when they finally stumbled into the villa they found it deserted except for William.

"Cain was monitoring you," he said. "We heard from her agents as soon as you made it through. I told her to get the hell out before you got back, and for once she agreed. But I doubt she'll be gone for long. She's not the sort to turn her back on a fight. She's regrouping, not retreating." William knelt beside the couch where Lee had deposited Kara.

William tended to her wound. One of his hands drifted gently into her hair while the other pulled careful stitches across her shoulder. After bandaging the incision, he kissed her softly on the forehead.

Then William turned to his son and pulled him into his arms as if he were still a child. The startled, happy sound that this surprised out of Lee was the best thing Kara had heard in a long time.

"I still don't know anything about this prophecy," William said when he pulled back and turned again to Kara. "But do you think it's done now - fulfilled?"

She tried to think. In taking the arrow for Lee, she had "moved in front of death," in a way. They'd fallen into a trap together, in the dark. If she tried, she might be able to twist the prophecy into describing the night's events. At the moment, she wasn't terribly interested. "We'll just have to wait and see," she said. "There's one thing, though, that I am sure of. I've had enough of the Council for one lifetime."

"Hear, hear," Lee agreed.

Kara looked up at William. "I say we all quit. Go rogue. Save the world our way and keep ourselves on the move."

William grinned. "I do have some experience with rogue demon hunting."

Lee put on his solemn face, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I was ready to declare independence years ago. I'm glad you two have finally caught up."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "Lee, spare us the politics and pour me a shot from whatever alcohol we have left in William's office. This shoulder hurts like hell and I'm about ready to knock myself out for the night."

A minute later, Lee settled back beside her on the couch, drink in hand. He helped her sit up and raised the glass in a quiet salute. "To you," he said, then shifted a little outwards to include William in the gesture. "To us. To whatever end." He took a small sip, then passed her the cup.

She glanced down and caught a hint of her own reflection.

She lifted the glass with her good arm, and stared straight into Lee's open face.

"To right now," she said.


End file.
